Musings for my next work of fiction
CONSOLATION TO THE GUILTY
"False pretences" is an interesting legal and moral dilemma: a double negative. Pretences can never be anything other than false. I gave you the hand-carved mask which you accepted without a word of thanks, but I gave it to you thinking that you would find it precious: a gift.
Eons ago, I found the small cubist-style artefact in a dry claypan north of an outback town. I knew that I should not have disturbed this object, this sacred relic, so humble and unassuming in one way, but so powerful in another.
I stole it , there can be no denying.
And then, to add insult to injury, I gave the to you.
But you stole too because of the context in which you accepted my offering: in the manner of narcissistic artifice and sociopathic disregard.
Now I am asking that you return the mask of many faces to me; you, the knave of hearts who stole those tarts, because I am not a tart, but you are most certainly a thief, as am I.
What determines the difference between a gift and a theft?
A legal practitioner might offer the opinion that I am the sorry subject of my own delusion with no grounds for remedy whatsoever other than ....to be continued.
CONSOLATION TO THE GUILTY
"False pretences" is an interesting legal and moral dilemma: a double negative. Pretences can never be anything other than false. I gave you the hand-carved mask which you accepted without a word of thanks, but I gave it to you thinking that you would find it precious: a gift.
Eons ago, I found the small cubist-style artefact in a dry claypan north of an outback town. I knew that I should not have disturbed this object, this sacred relic, so humble and unassuming in one way, but so powerful in another.
I stole it , there can be no denying.
And then, to add insult to injury, I gave the to you.
But you stole too because of the context in which you accepted my offering: in the manner of narcissistic artifice and sociopathic disregard.
Now I am asking that you return the mask of many faces to me; you, the knave of hearts who stole those tarts, because I am not a tart, but you are most certainly a thief, as am I.
What determines the difference between a gift and a theft?
A legal practitioner might offer the opinion that I am the sorry subject of my own delusion with no grounds for remedy whatsoever other than ....to be continued.
